Where free software and peer-review software differ

People often say that free software is a natural extension to the
scientific/academic idea of peer review. I believe that the concepts
overlap, but the requirements of academic peer review and the
requirements of free software are disjoint. My two main points are:

Free software requires distribution of modified source code. In
only few cases do peer-review systems have the same requirements, and
so far those cases are incompatible with the GPL.

Free software lets you (and GNU encourages you to) distribute
your software for as much money as you want. To be effective, the peer
review system requires some limits on how much you should charge.

As a related observation, peer review in non-software fields allow
restrictions on fields of endeavor, which while strictly outside of
the GNU project are at odds with the philosophies underlying the
Debian project.

Peer review doesn't mandate distribution with arbitrary changes

Free software requires that anyone who gets source code (and anyone
who gets the binary must be able to get the source code for at most
minimal cost) must also get the right to modify the source code and to
distribute the modified code to anyone else.

I point specifically to the BioMedCentral
Charter which says that you may distribute changed versions
"provided that no substantive errors are introduced in the process."
This is clearly contrary to the GNU GPL which lets you add as many
errors as you want.

(The differences likely relate to "moral rights", which is a legal
concept in most jurisdictions except the US.)

Don't get me wrong! I think you should distribute your published
software under a GPL or BSD license. It makes things easier for
everyone involved. But I haven't heard a good argument for why
allowing free redistribution of modifications to anyone is essential
for good scientific peer review.

In an
earlier essay I pointed out the CHARMM license which lets you get
the source code under reasonable and non-discriminatory license terms
of under US$1,000, and where changes can be distributed freely to
anyone who has a license. How much does that inhibit effective peer
review? (And I want to stress "peer review" here. It's easier to point
out how it inhibits developing new science, but that's not the issue
here.)

If it was available at no cost but prohibited redistribution for
commercial use, would that still inhibit effective peer review?

Free software lets you distribute the software at any price

What this means is that I can publish a paper in a journal and say the
software is available under the GNU GPL from my web site. Only, to get
access to the software you need to pay me US$25,000 or find the web
site of someone else who has already bought it and is rehosting it -
which means I've got my $25,000 already.

If you think that US$1,000 for access to CHARMM inhibits peer review
then you'll definitely think that $25,000 for access to my project
inhibits peer review. Yet the justification for my actions come direct
from the GNU project!

I'm interested in what an Open Access journal might do if presented
with this case. Do they require a copy of the source as part of the
submission process? Have they realized that the GNU project encourages
them to "charge a substantial fee and make some money" by charging for
access to those programs? Is there anything in the deposition process
which limits the publishers from that sort of behavior?

Of course this isn't a new problem. I'm certain that people dealing
with mice or cell lines have similar problems. Or even worse, since
the publisher isn't going to keep pure mice strains alive. Are there
community limits to how much a knockout mouse researcher can charge
for access?

Do bear in mind that the GNU project is concerned about software and
things related to software, and "works that embody
useful knowledge." Not germ lines. I bring up this point to show
that "peer review" works just fine with restrictions that are not
compatible with "free software."

Conclusion

I like free software. I like open source software. I've written a lot
of it, I've encouraged others to write more. I've helped organize
conferences based on the idea. Nothing here should be read as saying
that proprietary software is a better way to do science.

I also like science and research.

The sole point of this essay is to show that while there is an overlap
between the needs of scientific peer review and of free software,
neither is a subset of the other. They have different philosophical
underpinnings and you can't simply say that one is a natural
consequence of or basis for the other.